Job Insecurity and the Timing of Parenthood: A Comparison between Eastern and Western Germany

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the economic determinants of fertility behavior by addressing the role of job insecurity in couples’ intentions concerning parenthood and its timing. It starts from the hypothesis that cultural values moderate individuals’ reactions to job insecurity and the way it is related to family formation. With a systematic thematic content analysis of a set of semi-structured interviews with childless men and women around the age of 30 in eastern and western Germany, we are able to show that there are substantial differences in the consequences of job insecurity on intentions to have a first child. In western Germany, a relatively secure job career is expected to precede family formation, and this sequence of transitions is rather rigid, whereas in eastern Germany job security and family formation are thought of and practiced as parallel investments. We suggest that the lack of convergence in family formation patterns between eastern and western Germany after the unification of the country in 1990 is partially related to different attitudes toward job insecurity in the two contexts.     

Employment After Parenthood: Women of Migrant Origin and Natives Compared

Motherhood negatively affects female employment in majority populations across Europe. Although employment levels are particularly low among women of migrant origin, little is known about the motherhood–employment link in migrant populations. This paper investigates whether family formation differentially affects the labour market position of migrant women and their descendants compared to natives. Using longitudinal microdata from the Belgian social security registers, 12,167 women are followed from 12 months before until 48 months after the birth of their first child for the period 1999–2010. Levels of activity (versus inactivity), employment (versus unemployment) and full-time employment (versus part-time employment) are compared between natives and first- and second-generation women of Southern European, Eastern European, Turkish and Moroccan origin. We find that activity and employment levels decrease to a larger extent following the transition to parenthood among women of migrant origin than among natives. With respect to activity levels, differences between second-generation women and natives are largely explained by socio-demographic and pre-birth job characteristics, while differences between first-generation women and natives are not, suggesting that other factors such as tied migration patterns determine labour market attachment among first-generation mothers. With respect to employment levels, unemployment is increasing more among women of migrant origin of both generations than among natives, also when controlling for background characteristics, which signals differential access to stable job positions as well as to family policies. In sum, the results draw attention to the challenge that parenthood creates for mothers of migrant origin in terms of retaining and gaining employment, but also to the role of labour market entry and early career positions.     

The Impact of Macro- and Micro-Economic Uncertainty on Family Formation in The Netherlands

In this paper, we study the impact of macro- and micro-economic uncertainty on family formation between 1970 and 2000 in The Netherlands. Using data of the Family Survey Dutch Population, we analysed the monthly hazard rates of experiencing the transition into first union, first marriage and parenthood after the start of the relationship of 365 male and 364 female partners by applying piecewise-constant exponential models. The results show that macro-economic uncertainties, i.e. high unemployment rates, lead to postponement of the first union and marriage, but not of the first child. In addition, we found that this relationship is not interpreted by individual-level employment insecurity, i.e. temporary employment or unemployment, which does not seem to prevent people from making long-term family commitments. Although hypothesized, we did not find that the negative effects of macro- and micro-level insecurities on family formation reinforce each other or that they vary between individuals with different educational qualifications.     

Gender Differences in the Transition to Adulthood in France: Is There Convergence Over the Recent Period?

Numerous studies have shown that educational attainment and labour force status have a strong impact on the timing of family formation for both men and women. The effects of educational level, school enrolment and employment seem to be different for men and women. The aim of this article is to investigate how gender-specific differences in family formation have changed over time, and more particularly, whether these differences have disappeared in recent years. We use a large-scale survey (more than 240,000 men and women born after 1940) conducted within the French 1999 census and apply event history techniques. The sample size allows us to test our hypotheses with more sophisticated models that cover several interactions. Our data fully support the convergence hypothesis for men and women with regard to the effects of educational attainment and working status (working/not working). However, it is only partly relevant for the effects of their school enrolment status on entry into first union and parenthood. For both men and women, the impact of work experience on first union disappears over time, but remains important for first parenthood.     

Pathways to a Third Child in Sweden

The transition from two to three children is investigated, using data on Swedish women's fertility behaviour and labour force participation over a period of some 20 years ending in 1992/93. Two questions are examined: what is the relationship between working life and childbearing of two-child mothers? Are there differences in fertility between cohabiting and married couples? Several paths to the third child are identified, one of women with a university education and another of women with preference for more children, reflected by marriage after having the first or the second child or by persistent working experience followed by household work.     

Remaining childless in affluent economies: a comparison of France, West Germany, Italy and Spain, 1994–2001 Rester sans enfant dans des sociétés d'abondances: une comparaison de la France, l'Allemagne de l'Ouest et l'Espagne, 19994–2001

This article explores why women delay childbearing and increase their likelihood to remain childless in Spain, Italy, West Germany and France. We take a macro–micro perspective and show that national institutions influence women’s life transitions, in particular partnership and motherhood. For coupled women, we find two alternative modes out of childlessness. In countries with high direct and indirect child costs, like Spain and Italy, entering a male-breadwinner couple or occupying a stable and high-income position facilitates motherhood, while in the French context motherhood is most likely in a dual-earner partnership.      

The Effect of Children on Men’s and Women’s Chances of Re-partnering in a European Context

This work examines what role children play in the re-partnering process in five European countries (Norway, France, Germany, Romania, and the Russian Federation) by addressing the following research questions: (1) To what extent do men and women differ in their re-partnering chances?; (2) Can gender differences in re-partnering be explained by the presence of children?; (3) How do the custodial arrangements and the child’s age affect the re-partnering chances of men and women? We use the partnership and parenthood histories of the participants in the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey (United Nations, Generations and Gender Programme: Survey Instruments. United Nations, New York/Geneva, 2005) to examine the transition to moving in with a new partner following the dissolution of the first marital union, separately for men and women. The story that emerges is one of similarities in the effects rather than differences. In most countries, men are more likely to re-partner than women. This gender difference can be attributed to the presence of children as our analyses show that childless men and women do not differ in their probability to re-partner. Mothers with resident children are less likely to re-partner than non-mothers and a similar though often non-significant effect of resident children is observed for fathers. In most countries we find that as the child ages, the chances to enter a new union increase. In sum, our study indicates that children are an important factor in re-partnering and a contributor to the documented gender gap in re-partnering, and this holds throughout distinct institutional and cultural settings.     

Life Paths of Migrants: A Sequence Analysis of Polish Migrants’ Family Life Trajectories

After Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004, Polish migration within Europe has increased considerably. Still, little is known about this large and growing group of immigrants. Using unique panel data from the Dutch population registers, we first apply sequence analysis to explore and describe the variety of family life courses among young adult (aged 20–30 at migration) Polish migrants in the Netherlands. Each individual family life career is followed for a 5-year period on a monthly time base. Optimal matching analysis is applied to compute (dis)similarities between individuals, in order to cluster into predominant life paths. Second, a series of logistic regression analyses were carried out to determine the main factors of importance on the different family life paths. Findings showed a strong impact of the partner’s origin on the type of union and likelihood of return migration. Unemployment was found to be another important trigger of return migration. With regard to gender differences, we found that men are more likely to remain single and to leave the Netherlands at some point, while women more often cohabit and tend to stay.     

Where Are the Babies? Labor Market Conditions and Fertility in Europe

Cross-country differences in both the age at first birth and fertility are substantial in Europe. This paper uses distinct fluctuations in unemployment rates across European countries during the 1980s and the 1990s combined with broad differences in their labor market arrangements to analyze the associations between fertility timing and the changing economic environment with close to 50,000 women from 13 European countries. First, it employs time-varying measures of aggregate market conditions in each woman??s country as covariates and second, it adds micro-measures of each woman??s labor market history to the models. High and persistent unemployment in a country is associated with delays in childbearing (and second births). The association is robust to diverse measures of unemployment and to controls for family-friendly policies. Besides moderate unemployment, a large public employment sector (which provides security and benefits) is coupled with faster transitions to all births. Women with temporary contracts, mostly in Southern Europe, are the least likely to give birth to a second child.     

The choice of part-time work among Swedish one-child mothers

Swedish women have become more and more inclined to take up part-time work when they return to the labour market after the first birth. There has been a parallel development in the tendency to reduce working hours among one-child mothers who initially take full-time jobs when they return to market work. Consequently, full-time work has become more transitory among one-child mothers. Conversely, one-child mothers who work part-time tend to stick to this arrangement until it is time for the next child. The length of work experience prior to first birth is positively related to part-time work. Somehow, an ‘established’ position in the labour market seems to be a prerequisite for both getting and keeping a part-time job after childbirth. There is also a dimension which is captured either by education or by social background (two factors clearly related to each other). A high level of education or ‘upper middle class’ background is associated with a disinclination to work part-time. Fairly extended work interruptions (of a year or so) in connection with childbirth combined with part-time work seem to constitute a new strategy, which might be called the ‘combination strategy’. This way of organizing life after starting motherhood seems to have attracted the kind of women who previously tended toward the ‘homemaker strategy’ and the kind who in earlier times would have pursued a clearcut ‘career strategy’.     

A cross-national look at married women's earnings dependency

Using the Luxembourg Income Study data we examine married women's dependency on their husbands' earnings in nine Western industrialized countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. When we examine the level and degree of dependency, and the labor force participation of married women across countries, the nine countries fall into the three clusters delineated in Esping-Andersen's welfare states typology. But when we examine the determinants of the dependency within each country, the clustering disappears. Wives' dependency increases with age, the presence of young children, and the number of children. It is reduced when wives' labor force participation and education are high relative to their husbands' and in families that rely more on unearned sources of income. The similarity of patterns across countries suggests that gender differences in the work-family nexus are deeply entrenched in all countries and continue even in the face of very active social policy to minize their effects. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, August 1995, Washington DC. Her current research focuses on gender inequality and parents' time allocation between work and family. She conducts research on various aspects of family demography, including household and family characteristics, co-resident grandparent families, cohabitation, and child care. With Suzanne Bianchi, she is completing a research monograph on trends in the American family. Her research focuses on gender, work, and family issues.     

Marriage Migration Versus Family Reunification: How Does the Marriage and Migration History Affect the Timing of First and Second Childbirth Among Turkish Immigrants in Germany?

Our study focuses on the fertility of first-generation female and male Turkish migrants in Germany. To evaluate whether timing effects such as fertility disruption or an interrelation of marriage, migration and childbirth occur, we examine first and second births in the years before and after immigration to Germany. The Turkish sample of the Generations and Gender Survey which was conducted in 2006 offers the unique opportunity to examine Turkish immigrants as a single immigrant category. We question the common understanding that Turkish immigrants who arrived to Germany after 1973 mainly arrived for family reunification resulting in high birth intensities immediately after immigration. To distinguish different circumstances under which male and female immigrants have arrived to Germany, we include the combined marriage and migration history of the couple. We find that first birth probabilities are elevated during the years immediately following migration. But this effect is not universal among migrants with different marriage and migration histories. It appears that the arrival effect of high birth intensities is particularly high among female immigrants and is evident only among marriage migrants, that is Turks who married a partner who already lived in Germany at the time of the wedding. By contrast, among those who immigrated for family reunification, we do not find such an arrival effect.     

德国魏玛时代失业问题探析

魏玛时期的失业问题伴随当时德国社会经济的发展呈现出明显的阶段性特征。第一个阶段是战后的初期阶段,魏玛德国的失业问题开始凸显,在恶性通货膨胀的影响下,失业规模在1923年底迅速扩大。第二个阶段是相对稳定时期,随着德国经济持续的发展,失业问题开始得到缓解。但20年代中期的"合理化运动"又导致德国出现了结构性失业和技术性失业,这两种长期性失业类型使德国的失业率居高不下。第三阶段是大萧条时期,经济大危机重创了魏玛德国的社会经济,再加上政府经济政策的失误和劳动人口结构的改变,严重失业问题直到共和国的崩溃也未能解决。     

Childbearing Following Marital Dissolution in Britain

This paper investigates the subsequent fertility of British women who have experienced the dissolution of their first marriage in recent decades. Data for 7739 women from the 1990–1995 General Household Surveys are used to examine the socio-demographic factors associated with experiencing a post-dissolution birth. Just under one half of women who had experienced marital dissolution went on to experience a conception within twelve years. A women's age and her repartnering status are shown to be the factors most strongly associated with the probability of a post-dissolution conception. The age of a woman's youngest child is found to be more strongly associated with her likelihood of experiencing a conception than her parity at marital dissolution.     

Partner Choice Patterns Among the Descendants of Turkish Immigrants in Europe

We examine the partner choice patterns of second-generation Turks in 13 European cities in seven countries. We not only compare intermarriage versus endogamous marriage, but also explicitly include the choice of a second-generation partner of the same origin and of a partner of other migrant origin as important alternatives. In Europe, populations are made up increasingly of migrants and their descendants resulting in new alternative partner options not open before. Findings suggest that second-generation Turks who choose a second-generation partner seem to be located between the partner choice of a first-generation and native partner in terms of family values and contact to non-coethnic peers. The choice of a partner of other migrant origin hardly differs in these characteristics from the choice of a native partner. Context variables such as group size and type of integration policies seem to play a role for the likelihood of having a first-generation versus a second-generation partner of Turkish origin but not for the likelihood of exogamous partner choice. A second-generation partner is the most popular choice in Germany but represents a minor option in the other countries. Furthermore, a partner of other migrant origin is more common among men but is in some countries more popular than a native partner among Turkish second-generation men and women.     

The Impact of Children on Divorce Risks of Swedish Women

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of children on divorce risks in 1971–1994 for first-married Swedish women. This impact is examined using two measures of family composition, namely the number of children and the age of the youngest child, and we find an independent effect from each of these factors on the propensity to divorce. There is an additional impact of births prior to marriage on the subsequent divorce risk. We present time series of divorce risks for women with different types of children, showing trends for both the factors of parity and age of youngest child. The general picture of Swedish divorce-risk trends shows a strong increase in 1974, mostly among childless women, in response to a reform of the divorce legislation. Since the beginning of the 1980s, the risks have increased steadily, mostly among mothers. Our study is performed by indirect standardization of register data and we also control for the effects of age at and duration of marriage.     

德国失业保险制度的调整及其依据

面对近年来的高失业率,德国在失业保险制度框架内进行了一些调整,主要措施是将失业保险基金更多投向就业促进、降低失业保险给付水平、缩短失业保险给付期限、改变失业保险给付方式等,其目的在于促进就业。德国采取这些措施的理论依据是人力资本、失业保险给付水平、给付期限和给付方式对再就业影响的研究。     

欧洲社会政策的积极化转型

从政治学的视角对过去二十年中大部分经合组织国家发生的积极化转型提出一些解释,可以更好地理解发生这一转型的原因。概括起来,主要有三个因素：　在经合组织经济体中劳动力市场的后工业化发展;其他途径在解决大规模失业问题上的无能为力;政党想通过创新性和现代化的劳动力市场改革来树立声名的愿望。这一观点在丹麦、英国、荷兰、瑞典、德国、法国和意大利等七个欧洲国家所经历的发展轨迹中得到展现。     

专业社会工作介入孤残儿童家庭寄养探析——以上海市儿童福利院为例

在中国,孤残儿童家庭寄养是近几年才出现的一种儿童福利、儿童保护的新模式。上海市儿童福利院的孤残儿童家庭寄养工作至今已有10年。本文以上海市儿童福利院为研究个案,试图从专业社会工作的角度对孤残儿童家庭寄养的理念、过程、方法、技巧等进行研究分析,在此基础上提出家庭寄养社会工作的职业化和专业化发展建议。